So very excited to be back in Brazil !

After spending a day chillaxing in Florianopolis , we then began to head eastwards, our first stop being Piracicaba , a small city about 2 hours from Sao Paulo to visit Nino and Iuri, the 2 Brazilian sons who I lived with 2 years earlier in the Northeast during my year abroad. It was great to catch up, Nino managed to borrow a friends car so he could take us on a tour of the city…including a special trip to Choco Claire…a very special very chocolately chocolate cake and chocolate shop. At night we went to a house gathering of one of Nino's uni friends…at the most beautiful house I think I've ever seen - Marta designed it herself, a corner front door, spiral staircase, huge pool with a bar alongside it and far too many rooms for 2 people - and best of all it was absolutely full to the brim with quirky, arty farty objects from all around the world. The night ended with synchronized swimming competitions to some very interesting tunes, hilarious.

We then stationed ourselves in Parati for a few days over my birthday weekend and I was very pleased to hear a few days earlier we'd be receiving some special visitors - Jonny and Mark came to meet us for a few days. Parati was a lovely little colonial town, however not the most happening, so celebrations were fairly quiet but was great to be with nice people from home. The most entertaining activity in Parati had to be the kayaking…until we found ourselves halfway out to this island we were aiming to reach; we were quite unaware that 3 out of the 4 of the kayaks actually had holes in them. Jonny was in the water first and was the centre of attention for sometime, falling in and out and over and around the kayak to everyone's amusement before me and Mark were soon also out and walking our kayaks back to shore, while Ash went sailing off to the island solo.

We then all moved on to Ilha Grande, an island not far off Rio de Janeiro, and very idyllic, until it rained. And rained it did. One second me and Ash were in the internet café, the next the internet and power on the whole island had crashed and we found ourselves out in such torrential rain that within 5 minutes the streets were flooded and the water was halfway up our legs, much to one lady's amusement looking out of her window on the hill that led up to the hostel, water cascading back down at us as we battled our way home. Unfortunately the storms meant that snorkeling was pretty much a lost cause, but we were grateful to have had one beautiful day, where we were able to walk one of the trails which led to a lovely little waterfall and a couple of nice beaches.

So, both having been to Rio before, me and Ash decided to try something different this time and stayed in a favela in Santa Teresa. As far as I'm aware, the Pousada Favelinha was the only one of its kind, and the favela residents were very proud of it…all of them very polite and helpful while we were looking for it amongst the shacks. The view from our balcony was absolutely incredible, with a perfect postcard-picture view of Sugar Loaf Mountain as the centerpiece. We were really lucky to catch some samba groups practicing at the Sambodrome (where the famous Rio Carnival is held), although the night ended relatively early, having been in the pub since the middle of the afternoon to see Wales beat England in the six nations (sorry Dash)…did I mention that we found a Welsh boy to watch it with too??

The following day Elly arrived, all ready to take the flight up North for some gorgeous beaches and to celebrate carnival in lovely little Olinda. First stop was inevitably, Joao Pessoa , where we had spent our year abroad a couple of years earlier. It was great to see Fernanda (Mum) again - she's still in the same house, but it was strange to see that it was now like a little pousada, with lots of little rooms joined onto the back of the house and a gorgeous jungle painting all over the wall outside. We went about doing lots of things we used to do including eating sushi at Yokan (that was my request), tapioca in Tambau and lazing on the beach at the end of my old road. We were recognized in an old favourite restaurant of ours, which surprised me as I didn't recognize a soul, although Asha says that's because my memory in Brazil is terrible…maybe it's the cachaça??

A couple of days later we ventured up to my favourite place - Praia da Pipa, my favourite really because of the many dolphins that come to visit a couple of the bays there. And we weren't disappointed - on our last morning, there were absolutely loads, so so close to us, diving in and out of the water, making lots of squeaky noises, tossing fish about and generally being very very cute.

But Olinda beckoned…and the fun began almost immediately. After losing Elly particularly early to the cheap Smirnoff, me and Ash went off dancing in the streets with the blocos (Carnival groups) until the early hours. The week pretty much consisted of hundreds of thousands of people out on the streets at the same time, it was insanely busy and hot but the atmosphere was amazing.

A much more down-to-earth showdown than its sister party in Rio, it was the people that did the dressing up in all sorts of different outfits, and it was basically a get in and get involved vibe, where you danced, chatted, strolled and drank in the streets and followed the blocos where you desired. The most impressive and most famous of all the blocos was called Os Bonecos Gigantes, literally the Giant Dolls, where 100 giant papier mache cartoon figures of (usually famous) people, ranging from the local mayor to Obama, are paraded through the crowds. There was a timetable of all the bloco parades but being a Brazilian timetable it was hard to know if we had missed them, if the place was wrong or if they had never been, but we never seemed to catch any of the ones we went to watch…except Homens da Meia Noite. This bloco officially opened carnival on the Saturday night, and tropical rains made this one all the more interesting. Again it was cat and dog-like, but the band played on, and everyone just seemed to go wild. We spent some time stood on a plant pot before rains started to move it off the ground and the (shall we say fully equipped) police stirred things up a bit so we got into the crowds and followed them, dancing and singing in the torrential rain.

The hostel we stayed in was a perfect retreat too…they put breakfast on until midday to give everyone chance to get up, did barbeques everyday, and then we had the hammock area and the pool for cooling down. We met a few nice people there so we hada couple of good group nights out, namely the last night where we all tried to learn Frevo (a northeastern dance - quite funky - instead of samba in Rio) from some willing locals, Asha pretty much the only successful one of the group.

The week went extremely quickly and before we knew it we were back in the road to our last stop, Gaibu, a little beach town not far south from Recife . We indulged in our last caipifrutas here and the girls caught their last rays for a while before we left our quirky little (but clothes stealing) hostel for the airport. We had one last Spoleto (an amazing Brazilian pasta chain) before taking our separate flights…and now, at the end of February, onto Argentina !